Community

A major theme in the novel is the meaning of community, how it is expressed, and how it is destroyed. The community of Chance Cove on the island of Sweetland has been unraveling slowly for decades at the time of the novel, because of the loss of the cod fishing industry. The Canadian government has offered the community members a significant amount of money to dissolve their community, abandoning it and dispersing themselves to other places around the country. The younger people have mostly left Chance Cove for work on the mainland in other industries. The older people who have been left behind have mostly been forced into idleness or subsistence living by gardening and collecting firewood.

However, though the community is suffering in the novel through the conflict over the resettlement agreement and some community member's refusal to sign on, there are still many signs...